I have one 10 years old in use. Its still going although the problem is the tank rots out depending on your water. I use a softer.
I would think is the price is good I personally would not hesitate to buy it.Since its unused, I don't think they have changed much except to probably use cheaper parts. You can get a new one for $145 or so depending on the model.

larry: thanky you very much for your quick response.
I think I will get it; just wanted to run it by you GW-folks.

And thanks for the info on using a softer. We have really hard well water, so I'll be sure to do that for my tank.

good night; past my bedtime (w/ 2 young toddlers who get up a crack of dawn).

Amanda

How do you hook up a softener to your IH? What type of softener do you use?

Sue

The first softener I had I bought at a thrift store. It lasted until I moved 7 years, the 2nd I bought at another thrift store It lasted 17 years. The 3rd I bought at a building surplus store new, the one I have now. Its a GE a fully automatic. I paid $200 for it. They can be had at places like Sears and HD and Lowes but they are in the $400 range. The secret is to use rosin cleaner from time to time to clean the rosin bed of Iron if you have Iron in the water.

They are meant to be used for the whole house. I just broke into the water line coming into the house and ran the line into the laundry room, then through the softener, then back out to where it was originally hooked up to the house. This does 2 things. 1. runs all water through the softener and 2. I added a turn off valve so I can turn off the house water in the laundry room instead of the street. It must be put in the cold water line before the hot water. While I was at it I put in a tank less hot water heater. Normally you would need a plumber to do it.
Everything gets soft water out of it. It makes dishes and glasses clean easier and removes scale and hard water stains, makes clothes whiter and when you take a shower it makes the soap much more sudsy and the wife says your hair softer. When you shower your skin feel slippery because of the natural oils. Squeaky clean is not clean its hard water.

Thanks for taking the time to post all that information, Larry! I was confused about the instant hot because I know we have hard well water and knew it would be a concern. We already had our granite installed so that ship has sailed but I am sure many other GW'ers will gain from what you posted!

Yes thank you. I was hoping you had something under sink rather than a whole house softener.

Sue

We shut our instant hot (on separate water dispenser) off after realizing it was costing us 30 month just for the instant hot. Kill-a-watt was dead on. My bill dropped.

When we want fast hot water we use our induction cooktop. It's faster than the microwave. It really is almost instant.

Klaa2

klaa2:
I wasn't ready to hook ours up yet but the cost of $30 per month got me curious. That seamed really high. I have a kitchenaid Instant hot, its a small tank about 1 gal. I filled it with water and plugged it into a killawatt meter and after 9 hours its only up to .23 kwh which translates to about 0.6 kw per day x 30 = 18kwh per month = $0.11 x 18 = $1.98 per month. It will run a little more if we use it but we only use it for tea and coffee. I cant see it costing more than $5 per month. What did you use yours for?